Sarah Manguso
The Deer Comes Down the Mountain

Now we gather worshipful.
The gears in his legs shine down.
He lifts his head.
Here he comes!
We’re erecting a maypole with green ribbons.
His legs are four probes.
And his back is a ship and his eyes are holes in the curtain.
We’re eating cookies in the shape of him.
The icing is gold and silver.
He’s’ shedding gears, here he comes tripping!
He is casting off the elastic bindings.
Now we’re hanging giant flags.
The wind-up key sticks in his side like a blade.
The wind rocks him on his wheels.
Here he comes, crawling!
The bright obvious shines in his body.
Here comes the electric, the burning mystery!

 
Found In Volume 29, No. 02
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Sarah Manguso
About the Author

Sarah Manguso’s memoir The Two Kinds of Decay (2008) was named an Editors’ Choice by the New York Times Sunday Book Review and a Best Book of the Year by the San Francisco Chronicle and Time Out Chicago. She has published two poetry collections, Siste Viator(2006) and The Captain Lands in Paradise (2002). She has been awarded a Hodder Fellowship, the Rome Prize, and residencies at MacDowell and Yaddo. Manguso lives in Los Angeles.